U.S. shale boom ‘ll affect demand for crude, says OPEC

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, forecast the world will need less of its crude next year, even as global oil demand growth rebounds to its strongest pace since 2010, amid competing supply sources.

Chief Oil Market analyst at Energy Aspects Limited, Amrita Sen, said while speaking about the impact of geopolitical unrest in the Middle East and U.S. production on global oil supply and pricing. She speaks with Alix Steel, Tom Keene and Peter Cook on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)

She said demand for OPEC’s crude will slip by 300,000 barrels a day next year to 29.6 million a day next year, or about 2.6 percent less than the 12-member group is pumping now, OPEC said in its first set of forecasts for 2014. The need for OPEC’s crude will diminish even as global oil demand growth recovers to one million barrels a day in 2014, from 800,000 a day this year, amid rising output in the U.S. and Canada.

“The million-dollar question is what is going on with non-OPEC supply, and when we speak about non-OPEC, we are speaking definitely about the U.S. market,” said Eugen Weinberg, Head of Commodities Research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “Otherwise, it’s a balanced outlook for the next year, and growth is likely to increase, though maybe OPEC are a little too optimistic on China,” he said.